You don't belong here: explaining the excess of rare species in terms of habitat, space and time

Autor(es)

Sgarbi, Luciano F. ^[1] ; Melo, Adriano S. ^[2]

Afiliação do(s) autor(es)

^[1] Univ Fed Goias, Inst Ciencias Biol, Programa Posgrad Ecol & Evolucao, BR-74001970 Goiania, Go - Brazil

^[2] Univ Fed Goias, Inst Ciencias Biol, Dept Ecol, Goiania, Go - Brazil

• Tipo de documento: Artigo Científico
• Fonte: OIKOS; v. 127, n. 4, p. 497-506, APR 2018.
• Citações Web of Science: 8

Resumo

Ecological communities are composed of a few common and several rare species. Many studies have evaluated the shape of abundance distribution curves, but few studies have assessed the causes of rarity. Using a dataset of stream macroinvertebrates, we investigated whether the excess of rare species in three focal communities of stones in riffles were common 1) in other habitats at the same stream site and period of sampling (environment), 2) in other stream sites in the same habitat and period of sampling (space), and 3) in other years in the same stream site and habitat (time). We observed that around 28% of the rare species were common in other habitats (environment), stream sites (space) or years (time). Among the three factors, rarity was mostly explained by habitat type, whereas a significant portion of the rare species in riffles were common in pools, submerged roots of terrestrial plants or in partially submerged moss patches. This result suggests that the presence in non-optimum habitat is a strong determinant of the rarity observed in natural communities and most rare species are due to sampling artifacts or accidentally sampled transient species. (AU)

• Processo FAPESP: 02/12538-0 - Componentes espaciais da diversidade de insetos aquáticos em riachos da Mata Atlântica no estado de São Paulo
• Beneficiário: Adriano Sanches Melo
• Modalidade de apoio: Auxílio à Pesquisa - Programa BIOTA - Jovens Pesquisadores